Rather than a comprehensive legal protection for personal data, the United States has only a patchwork of sector-specific laws that fail to adequately protect data. Congress should create a single legislative data-protection mandate to protect individuals’ privacy.

To counter security threats of Chinese investment in U.S. critical technology, policymakers should boost innovation in the U.S. economy as a way to maintain a technological edge rather than seek to block or restrict Chinese investment or to limit the export of certain technologies.

Given the strong evidence of the returns on women’s economic inclusion, this issue merits a higher place on the U.S. economic and foreign policy agenda. The Donald J. Trump administration should build on recent reforms to promote inclusive economies and launch an effort to address legal barriers to women’s economic participation;
increase access to capital, especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises; catalyze investment in women; promote technology and innovation; and support research and data collection in this area.

Steven A. Tananbaum Senior Fellow for International Economics Robert Kahn writes that financial markets rallied following the U.S. election, on hopes that President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s fiscal stimulus and deregulation initiatives would spur corporate profits and growth. Perhaps so, but a strong case could be made for the opposite: that Trump’s economic agenda will prove disruptive to trade and growth, face growing headwinds in Congress, and exert a contractionary impact on the U.S. economy.